Improve Performance and Profit With a Law Firm Financial Dashboard
Law firm metrics allow you to use data for setting, measuring, and evaluating your firm’s financial and operational performance. This includes uncovering any trouble areas affecting cash flow and productivity, as well as insight into aspects like client intake leads, aging invoices, and staff workflow.
While measuring the success of your firm’s operations, new business, and finances can often feel overwhelming, cloud-based legal software that features law firm financial dashboard analytics can simplify the process.
In this article, we uncover how a legal dashboard can improve productivity and profitability, and share practical methods for setting up key financial metrics.
What is a Financial Dashboard, and How Can it Help?
A legal dashboard provides law firm profitability metrics through charts and visuals containing data on how well your firm performs financially and operationally. It can provide the benefits listed below.
Revenue Boost
Your firm can use financial metrics to set goals for maximizing revenue. For example, MyCase financial software reveals key performance indicators (KPIs) for law firms such as the number of leads you’ve added, converted, and failed to convert within a set time period.
It also tracks additional essential information, such as each attorney’s billable and non-billable hours per case and the amount of money collected versus billed. These law firm KPIs will keep you on track to achieve your goals for improving new business generation, billable work, and accounts receivable cash flow.
Improved Workflows
Law firm financial dashboards can also uncover valuable data related to your team’s productivity during casework. For example, case analytics insights from MyCase reveal the amount of open and closed cases at any given time.
An unusually high amount of open cases versus closed cases during any given month may reveal work inefficiencies. This can include too much time spent on admin work or issues related to client communication or overall time management. Workflow automation and client communication software can serve as possible solutions based on this legal data.
Aid in Law Firm Expansion
Law firm metrics from a financial KPI dashboard are also great for measuring the success of your firm’s expansion. For instance, you can view the total open cases, which can be further segmented into open cases by practice type. So, if your firm is expanding its practice to include (for instance) personal injury (PI) clients, the data shows how well your team is securing lead/conversions for the new practice area. If the numbers are low, your firm can make adjustments, such as a new targeted marketing campaign to boost PI leads.
Designing a Financial Dashboard for Your Firm
A legal dashboard is your launch pad for improving your firm’s leads, cash flow, and billable work by setting and managing quantifiable goals. Start with a game plan of selecting target law firm KPIs, attaching those KPIs to goals, evaluating goal success, and issuing any necessary workflow adjustments.
1. Pick Important KPIs for Law Firms
You know your firm’s needs the best. Select specific law firm KPIs for the areas you want to improve. This can include revenue, operations, and/or new business KPIs.
For instance, if leads are an issue, you’ll want to set up and analyze KPIs related to client intake, such as total client leads/conversions per month. If you’d like to improve billable hours, you’ll want to create and measure workflow KPIs, such as the total amount invoiced (billed) versus collected per month and each attorney’s monthly utilization rate.
All in all, KPI selection forms the basis for setting monthly goals. Check out this article on law firm financial metrics for more information on the most impactful KPIs to track.
2. Set KPI Goals and Track Firm Performance
Once you’ve selected your KPIs, you’re ready to set goals for these KPIs. This can include setting a minimum of (for example) 30 new leads and 10 new conversions per month or increasing each attorney’s utilization rate by 35% in the last quarter of the year. A law firm financial dashboard will help you determine if you’re on track to meet your goals.
For more information on setting goals, read this article on law firm financial benchmarks for maximizing profit.
3. See How Your Team is Doing with Law Firm Metrics
A financial KPI dashboard can reveal trouble spots that hinder your team from meeting weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly goals. For example, if your team fails to meet monthly billable hour goals, a legal dashboard may showcase an unusually high amount of non-billable hours. In this case, time tracking may be the issue. Your firm can fix this pain point by utilizing time-tracking software.
For more on how law firm profitability metrics can improve your team’s success, check out this article on the benefits of being a data-driven lawyer.
Set and Meet Your Goals With MyCase
Get started today by setting up the best financial dashboard that syncs with client intake and lead management, case management, billing and payments, and client communications. With MyCase you can select relevant legal KPIs, set business goals, and adjust workflow–all in one place to better manage your law firm. In addition, read about how a court calendaring software can help your business stay organized.
Try MyCase today risk-free with a 10-day free trial. There’s no commitment required, and you can cancel anytime.
